The invention of the first cash register is associated with the Ritty brothers from the United States.

In 1878, James Ritty took a European cruise on a steamship. On the voyage, he made friends with an onboard mechanic and studied in detail how worked the device that counted the number of the revolutions made by the propeller shaft on passage. That is where he got the idea of ​​a cash register, which, by analogy with the steamship device, would count the number of monetary transactions — thus, he could control the profit of his bar and prevent the theft of revenue. The first model of the device was assembled by his brother — inventor John Ritty. And a year later, in 1879, they received a patent for the manufacture and distribution of the device.

The first device was simple: keys for entering the amount of the sale were arranged in two rows, and above them was a dial with hands. One hand counted the dollars, the other — the cents. In the second, improved model each trading operation was recorded on a special disc.

The third model was equipped with a special window, where the seller and the buyer could see the amount of the sale, and each operation was recorded on a paper roll. The industrial-scale production began with the fourth version, which could issue a paper receipt.

In 1884, the entrepreneur and philanthropist John Patterson acquired the rights to manufacture the cash register. By that time, the device already had a drawer for storing money, the opening of which was always accompanied by a ringing bell. The drawer opened only after the seller recorded the payment for the goods.

After the acquisition of the patent, John Patterson founded the company National Cash Register Company and began to produce mechanized cash registers. In 1906, the company engineers developed and assembled electrical devices, which allowed to fully automate the process. The peak of the product popularity began in 1911: at that time the number of purchased devices exceeded a million. The company exists today under the name NCR Company.

The development of cash registers in Russia was prevented by the First World War and the 1917 Revolution. Only by 1934 the Soviet industry began to produce its own cash registers.

The museum apparatus was created in 1910-1912. It dates back to the pre-war mechanical cash registers with the label National, which were produced in the United States. The device is made of wood and bronze and decorated with a floral pattern.